The hospital was one of only three facilities in the state to receive a “D” grade from the Leapfrog Group, a non-profit that scores hospitals on their overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.

The report states the hospital scored below average in about 15 categories, including safety training, handwashing and medication errors.

The hospital had received “A” grades the past few years, but received a “C” grade last fall and a “D” grade most recently.

Nash UNC Health Care President and CEO Larry Chewning says while they’ve received scores in the past, this is the first time they’ve participated in the report and sent survey answers to the non-profit group.

“Obviously we were very disappointed in the score that we got but as we’ve learned it’s not unusual for first time survey takers to see their ratings drop,” said Chewning.

Several Nash County commissioners raised concerns about the hospital report at Monday’s meeting.

Chairman Robbie Davis stressed the need for the hospital to make some changes and claims this report only reiterates what he’s heard from constituents about the hospital. He says he’s received complaints about long wait times, underutilized facilities and the hospital being understaffed.

Chewning asks the public to put the report in context, claiming they’ve scored well on other hospital rating reports such as the Blue Cross Blue Shield evaluation program. Regardless, he says they plan on coming up with a game plan for each of the categories they scored poorly on.

“We depend on a number of external evaluations of our performance and so the ‘Leapfrog’ survey is just one of those,” said Chewning. “The ‘Leapfrop’ survey has given us the opportunity to say, ‘Okay, here are some things that from a survey standpoint didn’t stack up very well on and allows us to make improvements.’”

Hospital leaders say they also plan on meeting with county commissioners sometime next week to address some of the issues raised at Monday’s meeting.